Bubbling over

Your correspondent D. C. Ferrier's plan to create solar-radiation-dispersal bubbles in synchronous orbit around the Earth (29 April, p 51), while obviously motivated by the best of intentions, is flawed because he has ignored a basic property of the blown bubble, as we know it.

Any (terrestrial) bubble depends for its stability, and longevity, on maintaining a delicate equilibrium between the pressure inside the bubble, the pressure outside the bubble, and the surface-tension characteristics of the stuff making up the bubble.

Outside the atmosphere, any bubble constructed according to our experience on Earth will simply continue to expand until it "pops" when its film can no longer contain the pressure within.

Witness the analogy with hydrogen or helium-filled balloons which have a limited lifespan as they ascend into regions of much-reduced atmospheric pressure.

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